On Jul. 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Edwin E. “Buzz” Aldrin landed the Apollo 11 Eagle Lunar Module on the Moon. Just prior to the lunar landing, Neil Armstrong noticed that the lunar module autopilot was going to land the lunar module in a boulder field. In response thereto, Neil Armstrong switched OFF the autopilot and manually landed the lunar module in a safer area only seconds before the lunar module ran out of fuel. The reason the autopilot was headed for the boulder field was due to the fact that the surface of the Moon had only been mapped using equipment (i.e., telescopes) located on Earth or located on spacecraft orbiting the Moon during earlier Apollo missions, and did not contain sufficiently detailed lunar surface information.
Presently, maps of the Moon's surface are still relatively primitive in that they are limited to the maps used during the Apollo Space Program and to maps generated using modern equipment located on Earth and/or in man-made satellites orbiting Earth. In other words, current lunar surface maps still do not include detailed enough information to enable an autopilot to safely choose and land a lunar module on the Moon. Furthermore, the surface of the Moon is not being monitored in order to record any changes in the surface of the Moon, and specifically, the change in location of natural objects (e.g., rocks) and made-made objects. These changes may need to be tracked in real-time during, for example, manned or unmanned missions to the Moon, which are scheduled to begin starting in the year 2020.
The lack of detailed surface information is even more problematic with Mars. That is, because 1) the Earth is considerably farther away from Mars than from the Moon; 2) there have been relatively few unmanned missions to Mars; and 3) there have not been any previous manned missions to Mars, the surface maps of Mars are even less detailed than the maps of the Moon. This is problematic because manned missions to Mars are scheduled to begin in the year 2030, and there is an obvious goal of being able to accurately locate a safe place to land a space module on Mars' surface.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide systems and methods for accurately mapping the surface of a celestial body. In addition, it is desirable to provide systems and methods for mapping changes in position of objects and terrain on the surface of the celestial body in real-time. Furthermore, other desirable features and characteristics of the present invention will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description of the invention and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and this background of the invention.